I guess it's common just sad to see.

Not like you can "just do it and be a bigger economy / sell stuff" but you gotta get some sort of economic output that results in exports or ... something there if you're going to borrow, otherwise the result is inevitable.

The problem isn't spending because governments are a macroeconomic and microeconomic entity bundled together. Everyone wants to present it as a moral failure but it is quite simple. When your country consists of one industry and that industry is gone, so is your country.

You can borrow and spend money to diversify. Lots of successful countries have done it.